Photography/Photoshop Project: Big Me, Little Me

Take two pictures of your partner. One picture should be of your partner’s entire body. Take this picture against a simple backdrop. The other should be a lose up showing their face and hand. The hand should be open, palm up.

Copy the images to your computer and open them in Photoshop.

Switch to the full body picture. Select the crop tool. Crop the image tightly around your partner’s body.

Select the move tool. Drag the full body background layer onto the close-up image. It will be added as layer 1.

Switch to the close up image. Give layer 1 a better name (like “small me”).

Use the transform tool (command-t) to make the small person fit into the large hand.

Add a layer mask to the small me layer.

Use the select, fill, and paint tools to mask off all parts of the small me layer that are not part of the small person.

Add a layer between the two images. Name it “shadow.”

Use the brush tool to make a black shape approximately where the little person would cast a shadow on the big person’s palm.

Set the layer to Multiply.

Use Gaussian Blur to make the edges of the shadow fuzzy.

Lower the opacity of the shadow layer to make the shadow look less harsh.